Making handmade jewelry for someone is a unique and inspiring way to show you care. This “Healing Shrine” was created for a friend suffering from cancer. It was inspired by our new brass “window” blank shapes and a recent trip to Santa Fe, NM.
Healing Shrine
Each year, thousands of people pilgrimage to El Santuario de Chimayo seeking blessings. Many visitors take a small amount of “holy dirt” from the site, in hopes of a miraculous cure for themselves or someone who could not make the trip. I chose to encase my “holy dirt” in a glass portal, that I nested inside a brass reliquary. Following are instructions for how-to create this DIY jewelry design using stacked brass layers and cold connections.
First, envision your shrine and decide how you want it to look and feel. Decide on contents for your glass bottle. Unscrew the top loop from the cork in the glass vial. Measure, mark and punch holes for rivets (using the small side of the hole punch).
Stamp word “heal” on the metal band designed to hold the glass vial. Measure the band to ensure that it is going to fit.
Measure and bend metal band to fit glass vial
Using bail making pliers, bend the center of the band into a curved shape, leaving each end flat. Cut to shorten as needed. File the ends.
Arrange pieces and punch metal
Rivet the stamped metal band into place after double-checking that it will snugly hold the glass once it is assembled.
Rivet the band into place (to hold the vial)
Insert tube rivets in holes between the front and back of shrine, stacking copper heishi trade beads between the layers (to fill the space and strengthen the connection between the top and bottom layers).
Heishi beads as spacers between layers Sondra Barrington Memory Jewelry
Rivet them into place. Note: Be careful, it is very difficult to reinstall the heishi spacer beads if they fall off the tubes!
Place all heishi beads before riveting together Sondra Barrington Memory Jewelry
Patina and clean. Using two-part epoxy, attach a magnet to the back side of the shrine. Carefully fill vial with contents.
Fill the vial and pop it into place
Once the glue has cured, pop the glass vial inside the band. This DIY jewelry project can be a pendant, magnet or pin.
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